“Bats,” he said, following her gaze upward, to where ragged black shapes glided. She shivered. Concrete jungles were more her thing.
“Don’t worry, they’re vegetarians. It’s the mosquitoes you must watch for.” He stripped off his jumpsuit, his dark, sleek clothing emphasizing his tall, taut body. More Batman than Superman, perhaps. Give her a brooding mystery man over a clean-cut farm boy any day.
Except today. And only ever hypothetically.
She fumbled with her gloves. “What do I call you?”
His dark eyes fixed on hers, unguarded for a second, as if it wasn’t something he’d considered. “John,” he said, his mouth curling at one corner.
“Short for Long John Silver? Or long for Captain Jack Sparrow?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I prefer Jack.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”
She exhaled away the tension. If he was reluctant to tell her his real name, he must be planning to let her go. But what if the ransom wasn’t paid?
She jammed her fingernails into her palms. Even if the senator didn’t intend to pay, he’d have to at least go through the motions of searching for his daughter, after the publicity of the live webcast. He wouldn’t want the bad PR of admitting Laura had misled the public, with the primaries looming. Would the US military become involved? Did this count as a diplomatic incident? Terrorism? Jack might seem like the real deal, but one man couldn’t hold his own against a whole unit or platoon, or whatever pack American soldiers ran in.
Could he?
“Stop thinking so hard,” he said, crossing the gap between them in three strides. He laid a fingertip on her forehead. She froze. Some kind of threat? He stroked down to the bridge of her nose. Holy cow, he was smoothing out her worry lines. “You have nothing to be concerned about. You’ll be back in your rich woman’s world soon enough.”
He stilled, and stared at her, his forehead creasing. She gulped. Was he noticing the differences between her and Laura? He flinched, removed his finger and shook his head slightly, as if banishing an unwelcome thought. Had touching her been an instinctive reaction, a mistake?
His focus dropped to her shoulders as he began to unclip her harness, muttering some kind of chant in French. His gravelly scent washed over her. Her body heated up, as if it’d just realized it was back in the tropics after their high-altitude reprieve. She shivered, which made no sense at all. He reached down to slide the contraption over her hips, his fingers grazing her stomach. She lurched away. “I can handle that.” This was not a man to get worked up about, no matter how fine a specimen.
She wriggled out of the harness. Beyond the white tips of the breakers, the full moon lit a silver path to the horizon. Even if she could mobilize rescuers, how long until they arrived?
“You’ll have plenty of time to admire the scenery.” Jack’s deep voice made her jump. “Now, we find shelter.” He nodded to the sky above the jungle, where heavy clouds were rapidly snuffing out the stars.
At least the horizon was still out there. This might be a prison, but it wasn’t a cell, with no stars visible beyond the floodlights, no hope of hearing the sea, no hope of anything. At least here there was still a chance of rescue or escape, however small. She was alive, for starters. And not as helpless as he might believe.
“I need to go to the bathroom,” she said. “Like, right now.”
He started, as if suddenly awkward. Awkward was good. She could play on awkward. She hopped from one foot to the other—as much as she dared without risking falling on her face.
“I’ll just find a tree to go behind,” she said, eyeing the fringe of darkness beyond the clearing. “Seriously, dude, I’m about to burst my bladder all over this suit.”
He grimaced. Oh yeah, he was picturing it. Job done.
“Go down to the beach,” he said, quickly. “Less chance of snakes and spiders. But watch for scorpions—keep away from driftwood and rocks.”
Ugh. She was only used to dealing with human predators. The beach could work, though. She could scoot around the sand dunes and up into the jungle. “Flashlight?”
He pulled one out of a bag. “If you’re not back in three minutes, I’ll come after you.”
“What do you think I’ll do—swim home?”
A smile tugged at his lips. “Three minutes, princess.”
That’s all I need.
* * *
Rafe began repacking the chute and harnesses. A large piece of fabric and a bunch of clips and straps could have a dozen uses on a deserted island. He looked up, lining up the Orion Nebula with the star Alnilam to confirm where north lay. The villa was on the northeast of the island, beside a lagoon.
Phase two was complete. Gabriel’s men had come through this far, at least. They hadn’t dropped him in the ocean, they hadn’t harmed the heiress, they hadn’t shot them both dead. Maybe this fool mission might actually succeed. Maybe Gabriel would keep his word. While Rafe held the trump card—the woman—he was in a position of power. As long as he kept her alive and in sight, phase three had every chance of succeeding.
In sight. His gaze snapped toward the beach. Three minutes was up. Light spilled from behind a sand dune. The jumpsuit wasn’t the easiest thing to get out of, if you weren’t used to it, if your hands were still shaking from the buzz of the free fall. He’d give her another minute.
Merde—he should have taken the sat phone. Too busy trying not to think about her bladder, or any other body part. He couldn’t afford to lose the equipment before he figured out how the hell to get them out of this, without triggering Gabriel’s suspicions.
He stuffed the last of the chute into the bag and zipped it, then shrugged both packs onto his back. The light on the beach hadn’t moved. The air grew hotter and wetter by the minute. Better get the princess to shelter before the storm hit.
He jogged to the beach. “Laura?”
No answer. The swell had increased, the waves smashing onto the sand. He yelled louder. Nothing. His chest tightened. He closed in on the beam, sinking to his ankles in sand. The flashlight was propped on a rock. No Laura. Merde.
He switched it off and gave his eyes a few seconds to readjust. She’d run off down the sand. He followed, stepping in her footprints to save energy. The trail ran out at the edge of the rain forest. He scanned the foliage, found a recent disturbance in a stand of bamboo, and stepped noiselessly through the gap. Tracking someone in jungle this thick was easy, and he was trained to operate in darkness. She’d have to push through the foliage blind, leaving tracks, making noise, burning energy. She only had a four-minute head start. He smiled. Cat and mouse. His favorite game.
* * *
Why was the damn thing not working? In pitch darkness, Holly felt for the buttons on the sat phone and punched them for the tenth time. The screen stayed resolutely black. It’d been fully charged that afternoon, so it couldn’t be the batteries. Could it have been damaged when the capitaine—Jack—jumped from her boat? Or when they’d plummeted at God knew how many miles per hour? She was screwed. What now?
A fern rustled next to her. She pulled her feet onto the rock she was sitting on. Snake, scorpion or spider? After a minute the noise stopped. She eased to her feet and backed away—into something solid. She gasped, swiveling. A tree. Get a grip, princess. Could she creep back out to the beach and make a bonfire to attract a ship or plane before Jack found her? And how the hell would she light it—rubbing sticks? Put her in a city alleyway and she’d know just how to survive. In the wild she couldn’t tell a turtle from a